The Difference Engine

There seemed to be far more men in the warehouse now. It had grown darker yet, but lantern-light showed here and there and the iron beams were full of snipers. There was loud talk—argument it seemed—to add to the groans of the wounded.

The siege-works crept closer yet. They were now below Mallory's best line-of-fire. If he exposed himself in an attempt to lean over the ramparts, without doubt the snipers would hit him.

The siege-works reached the base of the cotton-bales. There was a sound of shredding at the base of the wall.

A warped and muffled voice—assisted perhaps by a megaphone—sounded from within the siege-works. "Dr. Mallory!"

"Yes?"

"You asked for me—here I am! We are toppling the wall of your palace, Dr. Mallory. Soon you will be quite exposed."

"Hard work for a professional gambler. Captain Swing! Don't blister your delicate hands!"

Tom and Fraser, who had been working in tandem, toppled a heavy cotton-bale onto the siege-works. It bounced off harmlessly. Well-concerted fire raked the fortress, sending the defenders diving for cover.

"Cease fire!" Swing shouted, and laughed.

"Have a care, Swing! If you shoot me, you'll never learn where the Modus is hidden."

"Still the Mustering fool! You stole the Modus from us at the Derby. You might have returned it to us, and spared yourself certain destruction! You stubborn ignoramus, you don't even have a notion of the thing's true purpose!"

"It belongs by right to the Queen of Engines, and I know that well enough."

"If you think that, you know nothing."

"I know it is Ada's, for she told me so. And she knows where it is hidden, for I told her where I keep it!"

"Liar!" Swing shouted. "If Ada knew, we would have it already. She is one of us!"

Tom groaned aloud.

"You are her tormentors. Swing!"

"I tell you Ada is ours."

"The daughter of Byron would never betray the realm."

"Byron's dead!" Swing cried, with the terrible conviction of truth. "And all that he built, all that you believe in, will now be swept away."

"You're dreaming."

There was a long silence. Then Swing spoke again, in a new and coaxing voice. "The Army now fires upon the people. Dr. Mallory."

Mallory said nothing.

"The British Army, the very bulwark of your so-called civilization, now shoots your fellow citizens dead in the streets. Men and women with stones in their hands are being murdered with rapid-fire weapons. Can you not hear it?"

Mallory made no reply.

"You have built on sand, Dr. Mallory. The tree of your prosperity is rooted in dark murder. The masses can endure you no longer. Blood cries out from the seven-cursed streets of Babylondon!"

"Come out, Swing!" Mallory cried. "Come out of your darkness, let me see your face!"

"Not likely," Swing said.

There was another silence.

"I intended to take you alive. Dr. Mallory," Swing said, in a voice of finality. "But if you have truly confessed your secret to Ada Byron, then I have no more need of you. My trusted comrade, my life's companion—she holds the Queen of Engines in a perfect net! We shall have Lady Ada, and the Modus, and futurity as well. And you shall have the depths of the poisoned Thames for your sepulchre."

"Kill us then, and stop your damned blather!" Fraser shouted suddenly, stung beyond endurance. "Special Branch will see you kicking at a rope's end if it takes a hundred years."

"The voice of authority!" Swing taunted. "The almighty British Government! You're fine at mowing down poor wretches in the street, but let us see your bloated plutocrats take this warehouse, when we hold merchandise worth millions hostage here."

"You must be completely mad," Mallory said.

"Why do you suppose I chose this place as my headquarters? You are governed by shopkeepers, who value their precious goods more than any number of human lives! They will never fire on their own warehouses, their own shipping. We are impregnable here!"

Mallory laughed. "You utter jolterhead! If Byron's dead, then the Government is in the hands of Lord Babbage and his emergency committees. Babbage is a master pragmatist! He'll not be stayed by concern for any amount of merchandise."

"Babbage is the pawn of the capitalists."

"He's a visionary, you deluded little clown! Once he learns you're in here, he'll blast this place into the heavens without a second thought!"

Thunder shook the building. There was a pattering against the roof.

"It's raining!" Tom cried.

"It's artillery," Brian said.

"No, listen—it's raining, Brian! The Stink is over! It's blessed rain!"

An argument had broken out beneath the shelter of the siege-works. Swing was snarling at his men.

Cool water began dripping through the ragged fret-work of bullet-holes in the roof.

"It's rain," Mallory said, and licked his hand. "Rain! We've won, lads." Thunder rolled. "Even if they kill us here," Mallory shouted, "it's over for them. When London's air is sweet again, they'll have no place to hide."

"It may be raining," Brian said, "but those are ten-inch naval guns, off the river… "

A shell tore through the roof in a torrent of blazing shrapnel.

"They've got our range now!" Brian shouted. "For God's sake, take cover!" He began to struggle desperately with the cotton-bales.

Mallory watched in astonishment as shell after shell punched through the roof, the holes as neatly spaced as the stabs of a shoemaker's awl. Whirlwinds of blazing rubbish flew, like the impact of iron comets.

The glass vaulting burst into a thousand knife-edged shards. Brian was screaming at Mallory, his voice utterly drowned by the cacophony. After a stu

He sat there, the rifle across his knees. Blasts of light sheeted across the buckling roof. Iron beams began to twist under pressure, their rivets popping like gunshots. The noise was hellish, supernatural. The warehouse shook like a sheet of beaten tin.

Brian, Tom, and Fraser crouched like praying Bedouins, their hands clamped to their ears. Bits of flaming wood and fabric fell gently onto the bales around them, jumping a bit with each repeated concussion, smoldering into the cotton where they lay. The warehouse billowed with air and heat.

Mallory absently plucked two wads of cotton and stuffed them into his ears.

A section of roofing collapsed, quite slowly, like the wing of a dying swan. Rain in torrents fought the fires below.

Beauty entered Mallory's soul. He stood, the rifle like a wand in his hands. The shelling had stopped, but the noise was incessant, for the building was on fire. Tongues of dirty flame leapt up in a hundred places, twisted fantastically by gusts of wind.

Mallory stepped to the edge of the cotton parapet. The shelling had knocked the covered walkway into fragments, like a muddy crawl-way of termites, crushed by a boot. Mallory stood, his head filled with the monotone roaring of absolute sublimity, and watched as his enemies fled screaming.

A man stopped amid the flames, and turned. It was Swing. He gazed up at Mallory where he stood. His face twisted with a desperate awe. He screamed something—screamed it louder still—but he was a little man, far away, and Mallory could not hear him. Mallory slowly shook his head.

Swing raised his weapon then. Mallory saw, with a glow of pleased surprise, the familiar outlines of a Cutts-Maudslay carbine.

Swing aimed the weapon, braced himself, and pulled the trigger. Pleasantly tenuous singing sounds surrounded Mallory, with a musical popping from the perforating roof behind him. Mallory, his hands moving with superb and unintentioned grace, raised his rifle, sighted, fired. Swing spun and fell sprawling. The Cutts-Maudslay, still in his grasp, continued its spring-driven jerking and clicking even after its drum of cartridges was empty.